February Destination Inspiration - Arriving at Terminal #3

Hello Everyone and Welcome

Amanda (ink-a-pink) here today, greeting you at Terminal #3 of this months Destination Inspiration journey.
Lets begin with a quick recap of what's in our travel bag to create with:
Product: Paint
Technique: Crackle
Colour: Black
Substrate: Tag

That's what I would call a 'happy' bag of goodies!
It's time to get messy and create my textural, crackled tag.



The tag is covered with plaster moulding to create all that fabulous deep texture.
Warning: Though effective it is quite messy!!

The Tag
I roughly sketched out a circular area in the centre of the tag that would remain free of plaster as this would be the flat space in which I would position my focal feature later. I then applied the plaster moulding to the tag.

Here's how:
Prep a bowl of warm water and cut lengths off the plaster roll. Alternately you can cut as you go, like I did and just 'embrace the 'messy'.



Working with one length of plaster at a time place into the warm water for a few seconds and remove. Don't drench or soak or the plaster will just become a 'gungy' mess that's hard to work. You will see and feel the plaster sheet 'soften' and become more pliable.



See the difference: dry (to the left), wet (to the right)



Apply the wet plaster sheet to your substrate either by keeping it flat for an even texture or by laying it down unevenly with lots of lumps and bumps to create deeper texture - as I did with my tag . Repeat the process until you are happy with the depth of texture you have achieved.
The plaster will set hard almost immediately but will need to dry thoroughly as it will still hold moisture from the water.
I actually altered my tag with plaster mould and stained it up some time at the end of last year for another project I had in mind at that time so I was at all ready to re paint my tag and get crackling.
I re-painted with a couple of coats of black Acrylic paint. Once dry I applied a layer of matte medium to give added adhesion for the crackle paint that was coming next.



 Though the instructions say to apply the Crackle paint with a soft brush I applied it with both a spatula and my fingers as I find both easier to use with this type of medium. As with most crackle mediums crackle paint is no different - the size of the cracks varies based on the thickness of application .
I always leave crackle mediums to air dry as personally I think allowing the process to happen naturally creates better results .



Once the cracks formed they seemed to take on a creamy yellow hue- I guess some of the colours of the stain (oranges and yellows) I had used when I initially coloured the plastered tag last year had permeated through!



Not really a problem as after applying another coat of matte medium to seal the crackle I applied another coat of Black Acrylic paint to cover and then used silver gilding wax to enhance the cracks and texture.
Lets get you up close to see



all the peaks and troughs



and all those crevices and cracks!



The Focal Feature
I die cut a large circle, painted it with black Acrylic paint and stamped onto it using an Andy Skinner crackle stamp.



I die cut a few smaller circles adhered them together to give sturdiness and painted them black.
I used the same crackle technique as I had for the tag:
coat with matte medium,
apply crackle paint quite thickly with spatula, leave to dry,
seal crackle with matte medium.



I adhered the cracked circles on top of each other and topped with an Tim Holtz Ideology Ornate plate that I altered with black alcohol ink touched up with silver gilding wax.
 An Ideology Quote chip sits atop with silver brads to fasten.



This was then adhered into the centre of the tag with foam pads and 2 screw eyes were nestled into the top and bottom to finish off.



As for the tag tie, well, nothing I had in my stash seemed to look right (and it has to be right) so until I find that certain something it will remain as is.
I do hope you like my textural crackled tag -I had a great time creating it!



Thank you for accompanying me on the 3rd leg of this months Destination Inspiration. I hope I and my fellow Creative Guides, Nikki (Terminal 1) and Annie (Terminal 2) have offered you some creative inspiration. Be sure to pop back next Monday when a fellow Creative Guide will be ready to greet you at Terminal 4, the final stop of this months journey.  

Our latest challenge 'Melt It' is currently underway and we hope you will be able to join us . 
We  always look forward to seeing all your entries. 
Details and inspirational projects can be found here .
Wishing you all a great week 

Happy Crafting 

Amanda

x  

Destination Inspiration : January : Terminal 3 with Jennie

Hello everyone, Jennie waiting for you here today at Terminal 3 with January's travel bag of goodies to share with  you.  A quick peek inside to refresh our memories of what is there:

Product: Sprays

Technique: Stamping

Colour: Blue & Brown

Substrate: Wood or Chipboard

Both Alison and Autumn have shared two lovely projects with these goodies and here is what I put together with what has to be my favourite ever travel bag!

I decided to use some chipboard pieces from a Tando kit and liked the idea of layering the smaller arches onto the larger one.

I glued everything together before I started, which was a big mistake! as I then couldn't get my planned texture paste to run from the inner arch to the outer arch, so I had to start thinking again about how I was going to add my texture!

I am afraid that there are no pictures of the actual process of getting to this stage - I thought I had taken some, but I must have got completely carried away! 

I gave everything a good coat of gesso before using my texture paste on the inner arches and then some crackle paste around the edges of the outer arch. Once this was dry I sprayed here and there with Broken China, Faded Jeans and Vintage Photo Distress Spray Inks adding a lot of water to get these lighter colours. However, I did allow it to puddle on the texture paste.

Finally I added some stamping using brown Archival ink. I thought the edges needed a little definition so used my gold pen and also rubbed a little gold wax here and there on the texture paste.

I love this wooden bird and greenery flourish from Calico Craft Parts and thought he would look good on my background.

I stippled two colours of brown paint here and there on the greenery with a stiff paintbrush and once it dried I was able to add a little gold wax.

And the wonderful bird (I am not sure what sort!) got painted gold and crackled. I added more stamping using this lovely quote from fellow Creative Guide Alison Bombers set of wonderful quotes about silence and singing (PaperArtsy EAB03).

This is quite a different piece for me (no flowers!!) and I have really enjoyed putting it together and creating the background despite making the mistake of sticking it together at the beginning. As a result it is a totally different project to one that I had in mind to make!

I do hope you will join us here next Monday where another Creative Guide will be ready to welcome you to Terminal 4.  In the meantime there is still time to join in our current challenge 

THINK INSIDE OR OUTSIDE THE BOX

all the details can be found HERE.

Thank you for joining me today and have a great week!

Jennie x

SaveSave

Destination Inspiration arriving at Terminal 3

Hello lovely visitors, - Astrid here taking you on the next leg of our destination inspiration journey.
But first of all, hope you are all doing well during this busy time of year, just one week now until the big day..... hope you are feeling ready ;)

We have a bag full of exciting and diverse goodies, here is a little reminder of what they are this month:

Product: Tissue Paper

Technique: Embossing (dry or heat)

Colour: Silver or Gold

Substrate: Acetate

Now like my lovely teamies Jennie and Sandy who posted in the previous two weeks, I cheated just a little bit, in that I did use Acetate, but not as the substrate. But let me start by showing you my finished project:

It's a little Christmas lantern, that was gifted to me by my wonderful friend Rita.

It started out looking like this:

I began by covering the two side panels with little bits of tissue paper, - a favourite technique to create texture.

I adhered it with gel medium, making sure there were plenty of wrinkles.

Next I painted over both panels with thick gesso

And finally coloured them with various layers of watery Decoart Media Acrylic paints: Titanium White, Burnt Umber and Raw Umber, mixing them with baby wipes and my fingers.

Finally the raised bits were highlighted with Treasure Gold in a mix of Renaissance Gold and White Fire.

Time to start on the other two panels: First I painted them with Gesso and then added some Raw Umber along the lower end.

I added some Crackle Paint over the brown and when the cracks appeared blended everything together first with white Antiquing Cream and then with a further wash of watery Umber paint.

The crackle paint I used was rather old so the cracks were ufortunately not very convincing.

Once the paint had all dried I covered the whole panel with Paper Artsy Metallic Glaze, which gave them a lovely subtle shimmer, which unfortunately does not show up in the photos I took of that stage.

On to the next ingredient, acetate: I cut two pieces to size to fit behind the open panels, coated them with the metallic glaze and added a few dots with a white gel pen for snowflakes. I then glued them  behind the panels.

Time to put the lantern together, or so I thought, until after I had done so when I suddenly realized I had totally forgotten about one of the ingredients, - embossing! Duh.... what to do now? Too late for any dry embossing which I could so easily have done with the acetate, so all I could do at this stage, was to rub some Versamark ink here and there over the side panels, sprinkle with gold embossing powder and like that add some more golden texture to it all.

It is a very subtle effect, but at least I lived up to the challenge and used all 4 ingredients.... (I must be getting old).....

Add this stage I also decided to add some snowy texture to the bottom of the front panels and some more colour to the deer. I used some really old and thick Decoart texture paste for that.

Anyway, that was it, - I'll leave you with a few more photos of the finished project.

During the day

And in the evening when lit up with a large tea light.

Well thank you for your visit and as this is a 5 week month there will be two more projects from team mates to follow, - and of course there is also some time left to play along with our Winter Wonderland challenge if you have not yet done so. Nothing like a bit of crafting to relief some holiday prep stress...

xxxxx

Astrid

September Destination Inspiration - Arriving At Terminal 3

Hello and welcome to the third Destination Inspiration for September.  Autumn with you today to guide you along the journey with the contents of our travel bag.

Our bag this month is filled with goodness:

Product : Gesso

Technique : Any form of Resist

Colour : Olive Green

Substrate : Chipboard

I decided to play along with our current challenge, Altered Art.  At my job we were all given these lime green journals as gifts from a recent conference.  I thought it would be fun to grunge it up and give it a face lift.  

I painted my cover with clear gesso, then layered a couple of olive green paints over it.  I sanded the edges to let a little of the original color show through, then stenciled a pattern with Archival Ink and a sponge.  

Next, I cut a watercolor panel and embossed this amazing image from the new PaperArtsy Lynne Perrella Collection.  I partially stamped and embossed the script from the stamp below (also LPC) randomly on the perimeter of my panel.  I blended Distress Inks around the face.  In the end, I was unhappy with the embossed face, so I restamped in Versamark Sepia onto tissue paper and carefully adhered over the first image, sponging the edges to coordinate.  The sentiment is by 7Dots.

I embossed this gorgeous chipboard from Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts in copper.  I used Distress Glaze to seal my stamped panel, then applied crackle paste along the edges of the adhered panel.  I wanted to use permanent inks since this will be handled, so I used ColorBox Chalk ink directly to the crackle once it had set.

The ribbon bookmark and elastic closure were both so bright!  I mixed Infusions with water and carefully painted them.  

Here's a little closeup of the textures and embossing resist...

And the finished product, simple, but filled with pattern and texture.  I hope you like it and are inspired to play in our Altered Art challenge.  Join us next Monday for Terminal 4...

Thank you for visiting today!

Autumn Clark - SewPaperPaint

Destination Inspiration - Arriving at Terminal 3

Hello everyone and thank you for stopping by, it's Deb here today with the third stop on our Destination Inspiration journey for November.  If you recall our travel bags are packed with the following contents:

Product: Patterned Paper

Technique: Altered Paper Techniques

Colour: Orange/Rust

Substrate: Notebook or Journal Cover

and you can check out what Tracy and Alison already created for us this month by clicking here and here.

For my Destination Inspiration project I decided to make a cover for my current art journal.  I had to deconstruct my journal as it was getting very chunky and I needed a cover so I could bind the completed pages back together again.

I added a secret interactive element to my journal cover as well, the butterfly lifts up to reveal the completed sentiment that I wrote.

I started out with a piece of corrugated cardboard packaging cut slightly larger than my art journal pages.  I tore a bit of the backing paper off of one side to reveal the corrugations below for some texture (and my apologies for the glare in these photos!).

To incorporate the patterned paper and altered paper technique, I took some Tim Holtz papers and Melange tissue wrap and coated them with resin, sprinkling on some Distress Glitter as it dried.  The brown paper at the top of the photo was the unbleached paper towel that I used to clean up and I loved it's translucency so decided to use it as well.  I had some extra resin left over so filled a couple of jewelry bezels with seed beads and resin to be used on some future project.

The corrugated cardboard cover was painted with gesso and then dragged through a puddle of Rusty Hinge and Antique Linen Distress stains on my craft sheet to satisfy the orange/rust colour component of the travel bag.

A variety of patterned papers were then torn into pieces and adhered here and there onto the journal cover.

I loved that wonderful resin butterfly image and decided to frame it with some copper wire.  I then started to contemplate how I could make it into an interactive component that could be moved or opened to reveal a secret.  Could I make a wire hinge that would allow the framed butterfly to be lifted up?  Well, yes I could!  I cut two short lengths of copper wire and curled them around a bamboo skewer.

I then twisted more wire together to make a frame for the resin butterfly image and attached one of the curled hinges to the frame.  The other curled hinge was meshed together with the hinge on the frame and short piece of copper wire was threaded down the center of the two hinges to join them together.

The resin butterfly was then adhered onto the copper frame with E6000 glue and set aside to dry thoroughly.  Once dry, the assembly was adhered to the journal cover and the hinge covered up with some strips of patterned paper.

More texture was added to the journal cover by applying some Wendy Vecchi Crackled texture paste here and there through Tim Holtz's mini layering stencils Burlap and Nordic.

The texture paste was coloured with Distress crayon in Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo once dry and then the cover was stamped randomly with Vintage Photo Archival ink and stamps from Tim Holtz's MM101 Clear Stamp set.

The translucent resin paper towel reminded me of amber glass and to enhance that illusion, I coloured it with some Butterscotch alcohol ink, adding and subtracting the ink with Alcohol Blending solution.

And then in my usual style, I got on a roll and forgot to take any more in process pictures, apologies yet again!  Three small frames were die cut with Tim Holtz's Stitched Rectangle die from kraft cardstock, the centers were cut out and the faux amber glass paper was sandwiched in between to make a window.  The word 'seek' was stamped onto tissue paper and adhered to the journal cover and the faux amber glass window was positioned over top.

I wrote the word 'an' on tissue paper with a Zig brush marker and adhered it with Distress Matte collage medium.  My brush lettering skills are suspect at best and I was worried I'd muck it up if I tried to write it directly onto the cover.

'Art Full' was printed out onto copy paper (the font is called Old Printing Press), the edges were torn around the sentiment and it was adhered underneath the resin butterfly interactive element.  Some wildflowers were stamped onto tissue paper and adhered with matte medium here and there on the cover.

And to complete the sentiment, 'Life' was stamped onto tissue paper with Tim Holtz's Worn Text stamp set and adhered to the bottom of the journal cover.  The edges of the cover were coloured with Walnut Stain Distress paint, some glue stick was lightly applied over top of the dried paint and gold Deco Foil was pressed into the wet glue for a random gilded edging to the journal cover.

And finally, a small manila tag was clear embossed with this great stamp from Tim Holtz's Phrases 2 Clear Stamp set, the tag coloured with Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso Distress inks and then fastened in place with a Custom Fastener.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope that you have enjoyed seeing how I used the contents of our November Destination Inspiration travel bag.  We have one more stop in our journey this month so be sure to stop by next Monday when Astrid will be here to bring our travels to a close.  And there is still time for you to join in our Cracked Up November challenge so break out those crackle mediums, stencils and stamps and get cracking!  Happy creating,

Deb xo